It handles one driver and one receiver, supporting data rates up to 20 Mbps — fast enough for Profibus, DMX512, or custom high-speed fieldbuses. With a supply range of 3V to 3.6V, it runs cleanly on a 3.3V rail, which is the standard for many industrial microcontrollers and FPGAs.
The 125°C upper limit covers the junction temperature under self-heating at full data rate; no derating is needed for most industrial enclosures.
Full-duplex bus topology
Full-duplex operation means the driver and receiver are active simultaneously on separate twisted pairs — the driver transmits on one pair while the receiver listens on another. This is the wiring scheme for point-to-point or multi-drop RS-422, and for four-wire RS-485 networks where a master talks on one pair and slaves reply on a second. If your backplane or cable harness already uses a half-duplex two-wire bus, you would need a different part; the SN65HVD1473D is built for the four-wire topology.